Organic Chocolate Stout | Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster)

0 characters.
We love reviews! Turn your rating into one with ≥ 150 characters. Awesome. Thanks for the review!

In English, explain why you're giving this rating. Your review must discuss the beer's attributes (look, smell, taste, feel) and your overall impression in order to indicate that you have legitimately tried the beer. Nonconstructive reviews may be removed without notice and action may be taken on your account.

Notes / Commercial Description:
Brewed with well water (the original well, sunk in 1758, is still in use with the hard water is drawn from 85 feet underground), the gently roasted organic chocolate malt and real organic cocoa used in this ale impart a delicious, smooth and creamy character, with inviting deep flavours and a delightful finish - this is the perfect marriage of satisfying stout and luxurious chocolate that will lead to smiles and refills. Samuel Smith's brews in traditional coppers, uses stone 'Yorkshire Squares' for fermentation, and ships every bottle from the brewery with great pride.

More User Reviews:

I hated it. I was expecting a roasted dry cocoa flavor. Instead it tasted like Newcastle with Hershey's chocolate syrup added. Very disappointed. One of the few beers I was not able to finish. If you are not into sweets STAY AWAY. Expensive beer and not worth it in my opinion.

This chocolate Stout is different to any other I've tasted and its quite magnificent. Very indulgent , it is quite luxurious . An Aussie mate of mine , tried it for the first time the other night , and is raving about it !!.
As mentioned elsewhere , if I wanted to be really picky ...a touch too sweet for my taste

I have a rule that I don't give a perfect score until I try more beers but this beer is practically perfect. What is missing in this beer? Anyone? When it is poured into a glass it has a great head, it is inky black, the aroma is among the best I've ever smelled (smells like dark chocolate candy), and that taste is amazing. I've been scared drinking chocolate beers because I've been worried that they would be very bitter, since Cocoa is natural very bitter. This beer is blended so well, it minimizes the bitters with a creamy sweetness (think a creamer, like is used in coffee). Wow, this stuff is amazing. The only negative is the price. That's the one negative I can think of, it was $5 for a bottle.

I'm not a big fan of stouts. They are usually just too thick and strong for me (flavor wise). This is almost perfection in a bottle. I think this is my highest rated beer as of now.

I think the bottling code was SK16P1 before it rubbed off. Maybe bottled november of last year?

Anyways...

Super tasty chocolate stout! I don't think I'd be able to point out that it's an english stout during blind tasting, likely using a historical english ale yeast strain. Regardless - this is a flawless brew.
Amazing retention of the fine bubbly tan half finger of head. Delivers a deep sweet chocolate and brown sugar aroma followed by a deeper chocolate eruption of flavor paired with evenly, not overly roasty, malts and a clean chocolatey and super light bitter finish. Mouthfeel is creamy and medium viscosity. Overall, going in with the intention of drinking a fairly sweet and sticky chocolate stout, this really delivered. Especially considering it's just over $3 for 550ml!

A- Pours a cola colored dark brown with just slight clarity and the head is an amazing caramel color with rich dense bubbles and the retention is superb! The original two finger thick head finally settles into a film over the brew itself and the lacing is quite well done with strings and small patches of soapy foam clinging to the side of my glass! The carbonation is too hard to see but I'm sure it will be nice....overall a very nice looking sweet Stout!

S- This is simply an awesome smelling ale! Sweet cocoa/dark chocolate nibs are so dominant that I sense that I'm going into a great organic bar of chocolate! There is an underlying tone of sweet malt, lactose, full fat cream, biscuit, milkshake aromas and little else....this smells like pure dessert in a glass!....WOW!

T- This is simply bliss on the palate!!! Mr Smith was having a good day when he came up with this formula for sure! Creamy malted milk Chocolate is very upfront, with underlying flavors of smooth intense vanilla, and slightly lesser iced coffee with heavy cream. Caramel like cola hints are present and possibly some earthy root beer notes as well. Toffee nut flavor is on the finish with just a hint of dryness to round everything out....I can't really explain how good this is....I just cant.....

M/O- Full body, and intensely rich smooth creamy carbonation just coat my palate so well....this is a simple yet complex pleasure to drink and really....who needs dessert when one can just pour this into a glass and enjoy?!?! Chocolate silk in texture and the alcohol is not even a factor.....I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble over the course of an evening with this in my hand, however, I don't believe this is a true session beer. This should really be illegal...enough said! Cheers!

Sammy Smith is probably the most consistent and solid brewery in that everything they make is perfect. Perfectly balanced flavor, perfect color, small yet substantial head and a gorgeous smell. This beer is another one that is perfect by Samuel smith. The chocolate flavor is just awesome on top of a beautiful stout.

Look- It pours a dark chocolate almost black with very nice carbonation from the moment you pop the top giving you a 2 to maybe 3 finger light and creamy oatmeal head that very slowly dissipates. The lacing on the glass is gentle but profound with bubbles just gently dancing on the glass.

Taste- The beer tastes exactly as it smells but even better with sweet milk chocolate dominating the scene but not so overwhelming you feel like you just fell in a bat of chocolate at Willie Wankas evil plot but just a sinfully subtleness . Then a delicious dry oatmeal sturdiness in the body. Sweet coconut and almonds add wonderful candy bar afterthoughts.

Feel- The mouth feel is creamy, medium bodied, with a nice finish that makes you come back for more. For this being a stout I drank it fairly fast.

Overall- I simply feel this is almost the perfect beer. I could right so much more but I find myself wanting to stop writing and run back to the Vine to buy more. men and women I think this is a big,big winner A+

Taste is rich milk chocolate, lactose, some caramel and vanilla at the end

Overall I'm not a fan of this beer. I really enjoy Sameul Smith but this fell short. Yes I know it has a low abv but I'd still like a little more fullness. To me it tastes wayyyyy too chocolatey. It makes a great stout float though!

Pours black
Smells of chocolate
Taste is the same, but there is something additional a can't put my finger on.
Beer has a great feel to it and was an exceptional choice today.
Makes me want to try more Samuel Smith products.

I am no stranger to milk stout and the sweetness the lactose provides to the brew, this year alone I have had Beau's milk stout, flying monkey's chocolate manifesto milk stout and another chocolate milk stout who's origins I can't recall but it had a cow in rubber boots on the front. Now I am a bit of a hop head so I have to be understanding of my personal bias, but this beer took sweetness to a incomprehensible, unpalatable level. I could not finish this beer and it turned my stomach with its richness. DO NOT drink this beer if you can not handle intense sweetness.

Excellent beer, has a strong chocolatey taste of course, almost like a tootsie roll. Easy to drink. It has to be cold, once it gets warm you begin to totally lose the delicious smell and taste & it becomes a little more difficult to enjoy. Overall, one of my favorite flavored stouts.

Dark brown or black, mostly opaque, fairly viscous. Fine-bubbled, even, foamy, filmy, rich tan head of good retention. Walls of lace. Smells like chocolate pudding, butterscotch pudding, banana cream pudding (these last two both could be off flavors, I suppose, but it is still enticing), and vanilla extract. Palate has even more vanilla but the base is still sweet chocolate, tiny amount of dark fruit, and there are mild earthy suggestions throughout, ever so slightly stronger and roastier on the finish. Medium-bodied, slick, with extra fine, soft, creamy, gulpable suds, and a little too much astringency for the style, even if I did’t catch it at first.

Not a huge fan of this beer. Pours just like any stout, has a large head though so pour with caution. Smells sooo sweet. Like an uber sweet vanilla milk chocolate. Taste is much too sweet for my palate. It's probably the sweetest beer I've ever had which kind of turns me away from liking it. I'm not a fan of milk chocolate and this is like the most sugared up milk chocolate melted down with some vanilla and maybe like a toasted almond-ish taste. I do appreciate this beer for what it is. I mean it's called an organic chocolate stout, and it sure is a chocolate stout, it's just too sweet for my taste. Mouth feel is fine, kind of a carbonated creamy feel. As I said, I do appreciate this beer but for my own personal taste I don't like it so much. Not a bad drink though by any means. Cheers!

Samuel Smith: Those magnificent bastards! I didn’t read their book (I don’t think they’ve written one*) but I am continuously impressed whenever I crack open a bottle of Mr. Smith’s Good Time Juice, aka all of their beers that I have tried. Today’s Sam Smith brew is their Organic Chocolate Stout [where have you been all my life?] or, as I often have to do with a Samuel Smith review, I’ve initialised the beer name to SSOCS to save on word space... hmmm, SSOCS... sort of like socks, I like it.

Poured from a generous almost-a-pint-but-not 550ml bottle into a nonic pint.

A: Looks like a glass of a certain ™ popular cola beverage... with a khaki-coloured 2 cm head on top - how very un-cokelike of this brew to have a head. The head soon reduces to a centimetre, that’s more cokelike of it. 8/10.

S: Full cocoa on the nose, which takes on a hint of coconut character (as cocoa can do sometimes, I think it’s the oil in the cocoa bean) with hints of cream and a solid Stout note of chocolate and a touch of vanilla. Chocolate milkshake in a beer in a pint glass - superb! 10/10.

T: Wow, this is one sweet beer... literally! This beer is aimed squarely at chocolate lovers with the above flavour characters of: Cocoa, coconut, milk chocolate and that hint of vanilla. Finish is skewed towards sweetness but it does contain a hint of cacao bitterness and mild astringency. 9/10.

M: Medium, but slightly watery bodied with a thin to flat classic UK pub carbonation. The wateriness pulls it back from greatness as this beer could definitely have benefited from its Oatmeal Stout cousin’s bag of flaked oats, oh well. 7/10.

D: This is too singular on the sweet tooth side for most beer drinkers I suspect... however I’m enjoying the break from hops - not every beer needs to be a see-saw balance between sweet/bitter - sometimes it is nice to indulge in a decadent chocolate dessert and this beer is the perfect complement to that experience, even if it is incomplete as a true beer experience. Final word: This is the best example of a “Chocolate Stout” I’ve had thus far, if you’re crossing off some sort of chocolate-flavoured beer bucket list this one should be at or near the top. 8/10.

Poured into a Samuel Smith pint glass.
Color: pitch black, chocolatey, 2.5" fluffy cream head.
Aroma: chocolate syrup.
Taste: malty, creamy and chocolatey but as it says on the bottle flavor is added to the stout, if chocolate malts were brewed in it rather than added I do believe it would taste better. It is easy to tell chocolate was added and not brewed and almost tastes like chocolate syrup was added after it was brewed. Sam Adams Chocolate Bock has a much better taste. Although still worth the try and still is better than many chocolate stouts. The intake on first sip is bitter creamy chocolate that ends with bitter sourness.
Feel: thin and creamy.

I've tried a lot of beers. If you're craving a chocolate beer it doesn't get much better than this. Pour this one in to big cold glass, smell the sweet aroma, taste the bubbles, savor the wet chocolate goddess. Enjoy.